Chapter 1
Gloria sat before the mirror, staring at herself as if she could unravel her entire life in its reflection: what she was, who she had become, and what, if anything, might come of her now, armed with a medical degree. That much was certain—she wouldn’t go hungry—or would she, if one day she decided it was useless to chase something that didn’t feed her deeper hunger… the hunger for a life that felt larger, brighter, freer than this? But wasn’t she, at least in theory, exactly where she wanted to be? Her younger self would have been overjoyed: a freshly minted doctor, a life paved with opportunities, a future swelling with promise. And yet here she was, combing through her fiery red hair, and feeling hollow.
She had always hated her hair. As wild and untamable as she was, her locks refused any order. Perhaps she was just like them. And then there was her face—too long, too thin, too sharp in places that begged softness. Her eyes, heavy-lidded and sorrowful, framed by lashes thick enough to command attention, were her own paradox: both compelling and exhausted. Some would call her reasonably pretty, maybe even striking. She never believed it.
Finally, she fled to bed, anticipating another night of restlessness, of thoughts that refused to settle. Twenty-five years old, and yet—what did she truly have? Capability, yes. Promise, yes. But freedom? No. She could not sail away to another country, abandon everything to become an actress, or corral her chaotic thoughts into a book the world might read. Her dreams felt suffocating, impossible to reconcile with the life she had been handed.
She wanted to exist everywhere and nowhere, to inhabit countless shades of herself. To read one day, to write the next. To bake, to paint, to vanish into a hundred fleeting selves. But in all those possible lives, she could not picture herself as “Doctor.” The savior of others. She could not save when she herself was unraveling, drifting in currents she could not control. Who would want rescue from someone who needed saving more than anyone? She was certain she would fail. One cannot have one’s head in the clouds and in a patient’s file at the same time.
And yet, there was no time for despair tonight. Tomorrow, the world would call her doctor.
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